“My biggest challenge over the next few years will be parenting my children as they get older. When they’re babies you’re constantly thinking about making sure they’re feeding right, that they get to those milestones, that they get to school.

“And then suddenly, as they get older, it’s their characters that are starting to build and I realise more than ever the weight of responsibility of making sure they turn out to be really good, kind human beings.

“My main focus over the next few years is churning out three very grounded, normal, happy, content children, teenagers and adults, eventually.

Willoughby first rose to fame in the mid-2000s as a children's show host

Holly met their dad, Dan Baldwin, when she hosted Ministry Of Mayhem and he proposed to her in 2006 after they moved in together.

She was in the bath when the TV producer, 42, popped the question and, nearly 11 years after they tied the knot, they are still going strong.

Holly says: “Marriage is something you have to look after and work at. It’s really important to do that and I’m very lucky that I count Dan as one of my best friends — he’s also a friend that I think is quite hot.

The pair have been married for 11 years, and Willoughby says they're still going strong

“If you get on and have the same interests, it makes the difficult times easier because you’re both approaching it from the same angle.

“So I’m very lucky, that’s all I can say. I never take him for granted, I really don’t, because I imagine it’s not easy at times but we do have a real understanding of one another.

“And he makes me laugh and that’s really important.”

Their kids are Holly’s pride and joy and she has managed to balance her career with bringing them up.

She has become the darling of daytime alongside close pal and This Morning co-host Phillip Schofield, and has a regular slot on the panel of ITV2’s Celebrity Juice, fronted by Keith Lemon.

But it is her latest link-up with Phil, 55, on Dancing On Ice that has got her particularly excited.

Holly admits it was her kids’ love of rival show Strictly Come Dancing which helped seal her return to the celebrity rink, 12 years after she and Phil first fronted the show together. She recalls: “They got so into Strictly and I thought to myself, ‘God they would have loved Dancing On Ice’.

Holly Willoughby twirls in her blue gown for Dancing On Ice

“Then, of course, Dancing On Ice came back and it was like, ‘God, they’re going to love this’.”

Her eye-popping outfits will continue to be a theme too, as the skating competition is ramped up for its second episode tomorrow.

Her dresses during her first stint on the show, from 2006 to 2011, led to her Holly Willoughbooby nickname and were often more of a talking point than the celebrity skating routines.

Holly, who stripped to her underwear for the above photoshoot with top fashion photographer Rankin, says: “There’s not many shows where you get to wear a gorgeous, full-on princess frock.

Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby's shock as woman calls This Morning to reveal she caught hepatitis from a frog

“So I am going to run with it, let me tell you that. It’s lovely.

“It’s like dressing up every Sunday, so I’m going to use that opportunity to have a bit of fun.”

Standing next to an ice rink in a plunging outfit would ordinarily make for a very chilly evening’s work — but The Sun revealed this week how Holly has been using hand warmers to keep her cosy.

She giggles and says: “It started on This Morning. Before Christmas we had an ice rink out there and it was absolutely freezing.

While hosting Ministry of Mayhem, Willoughby and her co-host, Stephen Mulhern, became so popular that the show was renamed after them

“I had hand warmers everywhere and that’s where we learnt that trick.

“It wasn’t just me, by the way, Phil had them down his pants. You adapt to your climate.”

Holly and Phil’s warmth on-screen has led to a multi-award-winning, eight-year stretch at the helm of This Morning.

Later this month they will be pitted against each other at the National Television Awards in the Best TV Presenter category — dubbed “the Ant and Dec Award” following the Geordie duo’s 16-year domination in the category. Bradley

Walsh completes the nominee list.

Holly Willoughby fights back tears as man with stammer reads out his wedding speech on This Morning

Holly says: “The thing is it’s really lovely to be nominated for the Ant and Dec Award but we all know that on the night it will go to Ant and Dec, as it should do.

“Those boys are very special and nobody can touch them.

“What they’ve got is gold dust and magic. But it is lovely to be nominated.”

The prospect of getting hold of the gong may seem like a distant reality to Holly but she still dreams about how she would celebrate if she won.

Phillip Schofield, shown here with Willoughby, is both her co-host on This Morning and co-presenter on Dancing On Ice

She says: “I wouldn’t go home for a week.

“I think I’ve got more chance of arriving at This Morning on a unicorn the next day than I have of that happening. It would be so huge and surprising. It would definitely be celebrated, for sure. But how? I don’t know.

“I like to see where the night takes me. I don’t like to have a plan.”

In 2004, Willoughby began as a presenter on the children's show Ministry of Mayhem

In 2016, following the NTAs, the pair presented This Morning still wearing their awards clothes, having not returned home from the night before.

But Holly reckons another all-nighter is unlikely to wash with their bosses.

She says: “The thing is, you really only get away with that once. I’m not really sure how we got away with it the first time.

“So you do that once and then you think, ‘Right, we were quite lucky there’. I think the only reason why it was OK was because everybody felt they were part of it too — because the viewers had voted and kind of put us in that situation.

Holly Willoughby's wardrobe contains every colour of the rainbow

“You felt like everybody was with you and they were on your side, so it was OK. It didn’t feel too bad. But I’m sure there will be celebrations and, of course, you have to mark those occasions. Otherwise what’s life all about?”

All eyes will be on Holly’s frock during the London ceremony on January 23, especially since she has become a breakout style icon with her “outfits of the day” on This Morning.